Blizzards downloaded is top tier. The startup time from initial, bare bones install to playable is very fast.
It starts with placeholder content to get you running, and anything immediately necessary for your area. For example, if you’re in a capital city, it doesn’t wait to download the entire city, just where you are. It can rough out the other areas and add details almost in real time as you start making your way through it.
Things get more difficult if you mount up and start flying more world to load, but even still it doesn’t load it all.
There’s certainly a cost, there can be FPS loss during busy areas, but by the time you get to something important, it should all be loaded.
Contrived example is you’re in a raid, some reason you feel you need to reinstall, you could do that, fire up the game, it’ll load the raid and by the time you hit the first boss, it’ll all be there. This will take minutes.
Since I leave the client running, it updates in the background. During new releases it starts to download the entirety of the new release a couple of weeks before it’s due, to get the bulk of the content down. When they cut the release, it’s typically a much smaller update to turn the new content on. I rarely have to wait to play the game.
Experiencing a few other games makes me really appreciate the work Blizzard had done in this regard. It’s top drawer.
It starts with placeholder content to get you running, and anything immediately necessary for your area. For example, if you’re in a capital city, it doesn’t wait to download the entire city, just where you are. It can rough out the other areas and add details almost in real time as you start making your way through it.
Things get more difficult if you mount up and start flying more world to load, but even still it doesn’t load it all.
There’s certainly a cost, there can be FPS loss during busy areas, but by the time you get to something important, it should all be loaded.
Contrived example is you’re in a raid, some reason you feel you need to reinstall, you could do that, fire up the game, it’ll load the raid and by the time you hit the first boss, it’ll all be there. This will take minutes.
Since I leave the client running, it updates in the background. During new releases it starts to download the entirety of the new release a couple of weeks before it’s due, to get the bulk of the content down. When they cut the release, it’s typically a much smaller update to turn the new content on. I rarely have to wait to play the game.
Experiencing a few other games makes me really appreciate the work Blizzard had done in this regard. It’s top drawer.